Mike Mills is the only person to win three Grand World Champion titles at the Memphis in May International Barbecue Festival. He is also barbecue guru and partner at Danny Meyer's Blue Smoke restaurant in New York City and owner of six notable barbecue joints, two in Southern Illinois and four in Las Vegas.
Amy Mills Tunnicliffe is a journalist and publicist. She also conducts training seminars and is a sought-after public speaker. She lives near Boston.
About the Cookbook
I love to read cookbooks and some are better for reading than others. If you are looking to sink your teeth into a great cookbook read this summer (pun intended!), look no further than Peace, Love and Barbecue: Recipes, Secrets, Tall Tales, and Outright Lies from the Legends of Barbecue by Mike Mills and Amy Mills-Tunnicliffe.
More of a story with recipes woven into it, this book is perfect for enjoying in the hammock in the backyard ... if you can resist the urge to get up and build a pit for barbecuing there! From childhood stories of growing up in southern Illinois to the humble beginnings of the Apple City Barbecue team, you'll see beyond the recipes -- although they are reason enough to get this book -- to the special community of family and friends that this kind of comfort food brings together.
You'll also learn a thing or two about barbecue and all the folklore, fun and "rules" that go along with it. If you're new to it, you'll be drawn in quickly. If you're a seasoned pro, you'll love the unusual amount of secret-telling that goes on. Either way, you'll be thrilled to get insight from Grand World Champion pitmaster Mike Mills. Here's an excerpt from the book on developing barbecue sauce:
One Way to Develop Barbecue Sauce
Many people start with a bottled sauce and doctor it up. You can cut the thickness (bottled sauces are usually too thick) and boost the spice fairly easily. My favorite bottled sauce is Maull's, out of St. Louis, and here are some ideas on how to doctor it. Start by simmering a bottle of sauce over low heat. Add 1/4 to 1/3 cup of cider vinegar or rice vinegar. Or put in the same amount of beer. A lot of people use Pepsi, which gives a sweet, caramel flavor. Add a tablespoon of granulated or fresh garlic. Throw in a little chili powder for an outdoorsy quality. Maybe add a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. A tablespoon of butter or prepared mustard tastes good, too. And you'd be surprised by how many sauces have a little chocolate in them.
Woody Wood and his wife, Cecelia, out of Waldenburg, Arkansas, came up with their barbecue sauce years ago using Wicker's as a base.
"Whatever did happen to Wicker's?" I wonder. "They used to be going like a house afire. There was a time that all winning barbecue teams used Wicker's. Let me put it to you this way: if they didn't use Wicker's, they didn't win."
"I used to buy it in 55-gallon drums." Woody tells me. "Well, the old boy who run it, the manager, me and him had a real close working relationship. He ended up quittin', and when he did, I thought, 'Man, this is not good.' They could have me over a barrel and raise the price of that to where I can't afford to buy it. Or they could say, 'Hey, we're not gonna sell you any more of this.'"
"That could be a problem," I agree.
"I had tried and tried and tried to make it. This here on the bottle says 'vinegar, salt, and spices.' That covers a lot of territory."
"You bet it does," I laugh. "Actually, I think I have a recipe for Wicker's; someone gave it to me a long time ago."
"Yeah, that old man who started Wicker's a long time ago, he was very loose-tongued with his recipe. But the only thing about it, he never told the same thing twice. I can't tell you how many people over the years that I've run into would say, 'Well, I know what's in that! Me and that old man used to go to barbecue cook-offs and we used to make that stuff.'
"So I'd say, 'What's in it?' And he'd say, 'Well you've got this and this and this.' So I'd try it and then pour it out. Then I'd run into somebody else and get another recipe. And none of 'em was ever the same. I even got a recipe for Wicker's off the CB radio going down the interstate.
"I worked on this recipe on and off for 10 years. Finally, I sat down and took all of these recipes that people have give me and I said, 'Well, I know that's not in there.' I kept working back and forth and finally, one day, I come up with it. Now we sell it as our Marinade and Baste."
It's a fun read that will leave you eager to try your own hand at barbecue and, of course, the wonderful sides, sauces, rubs and treats that go with it. To whet your appetite for more of what Peace, Love and Barbecue has to offer, here is a selection of some of the recipes you'll find in this treasure chest of stories, insights, recipes and good ol' fashioned barbecue:
These armadillo eggs are one of the best ideas I've seen recently. Spicy bratwurst sausage is molded around a jalapeño pepper stuffed with cream cheese to form an egg.
12 jalapeño peppers
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
Wilton Golden Yellow paste food coloring (or yellow food coloring)
3 pounds spicy bratwurst sausage, casings removed
17th Street Special All-Purpose Dressing, optional
Cut the stem ends off the jalapeños and use a small knife to cut the seeds out. Keep the peppers whole.
Put the cream cheese into a small bowl and use a toothpick to add a tiny bit of the paste food coloring (this paste is very concentrated, so a little goes a long way). Mix the coloring thoroughly into the cream cheese. Add more, if you need it, to achieve a bright golden color, like the yolk of an egg.
Transfer the cream cheese to a pastry bag fitted with a wide tip and pipe the cheese into the jalapeños. (You can make your own pastry bag by using a small zippered plastic bag and snipping off one corner.)
Divide the sausage into 12 pieces. Flatten each piece into a disk, place a filled jalapeño in the center, and wrap the sausage around it, pressing the edges to seal. Form the sausage into the shape of a large egg.
Smoke for 1 1/2 hours at 250 degrees.
Slice to serve. The slices will resemble sliced hard-cooked eggs, with the colored cream cheese looking like the yolk. Serve with the dressing, if desired.
Mike Mills is the only person to win three Grand World Champion titles at the Memphis in May International Barbecue Festival. He is also barbecue guru and partner at Danny Meyer's Blue Smoke restaurant in New York City and owner of six notable barbecue joints, two in Southern Illinois and four in Las Vegas.
Amy Mills Tunnicliffe is a journalist and publicist. She also conducts training seminars and is a sought-after public speaker. She lives near Boston.